My 3 year old grandaughter is currently progressing, as 3 year olds do, from "I want" to "I need". Part of this process is learning what she has to do to get what she wants... "If you put your boots on we'll go for a walk" ,"If you eat your tea you can have pudding". We're constantly bombarded with info about what we are entitled to ("treat yourself!", "Instant loan approvals") without any effort on our part. But life isn't like that. I'm often asked how long a painting has taken me to complete. I remember an elderly artist in Wellington who used to reply to that question "About 70 years."Sometimes the actual painting may only take an hour or two, but before this I've usually thought about how I'm going to do it for several days, done preliminary sketches, maybe had a few trial runs - quite a bit of effort before I lift a brush. And the more effort I put into planning, the better the results. There are no shortcuts in my job.In this morning's paper a local supermarket is advertising mandarins already peeled to put in your lunchbox! Sigh...